


The Sundance Kid Squares Up With Middle Age

by Emileesaurus



Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Big Obnoxious Title Cards, Canon-Typical Everything, Character Study, Craft Services at the Fake Moon Landing, Friends With Benefits, Friends With Questionable Benefits, Itty Bitty Pieces of Skull, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Poorly Defined Domesticity, Quentin Tarantino References, Smoking In Hospitals, With Thanks and Apologies to Paul Newman, gratuitous pop culture references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-13 18:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20178850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emileesaurus/pseuds/Emileesaurus
Summary: Officially, Cliff had never been Rick's handyman. On paper, he was, just like he'd always been, Rick Dalton's stunt double. The way Cliff saw it, his job consisted of three parts:One was to do pretty much whatever chore Rick came up with to justify keeping him around;Two was to keep Rick from drinking too much and blowing his brains out when a role went to somebody else;And three was to play more or less dumb about parts one and two.Every once in a while somebody else would pay him to get set on fire or hit by a car, but these days those gigs came fewer and further between.





	The Sundance Kid Squares Up With Middle Age

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe Quentin fucking Tarantino filled out my entire ship trope bingo card and then personally escorted me to hell.
> 
> But honestly, this is just a remix of his _Top Gun_ rant. I went to film school too, Quentin. You know damn well what you've done.

  


* * *

The sound of Rick's snoring dragged Cliff out of his morphine-assisted nap, and the pale haze of cigarette smoke clinging to the ceiling said that he'd been here a while. Apparently Rick had dragged a too-small chair next to the hospital bed, and there he'd curled up with his arms folded and head lolled back, looking just uncomfortable as hell.

Cliff wondered if he'd slept at all last night, or if this was the first bit of rest he was getting.

He mused on that a while, and then he reached over to smack him on the knee.

Rick jerked upright, half-awake and already stammering an apology. "Shit, sorry, I'm sorry. How long was I…?"

"Oh, five, six hours," shrugged Cliff. Rick huffed some kind of little not-laugh in response. He figured he probably escaped a _fuck you_ on account of having just been stabbed, and he missed it a little. "What, no flowers this time?"

Rick shook his head, rubbing at his bloodshot eyes. "I would've called, but the phone was—" Rick cut himself off with an uncomfortable words-fail-me sort of gesture, running a hand through his hair, which fell right back into his worried face. "I mean, you'd think they would've taken it as evidence or somethin', the whole damn thing's still covered in, in, in—"

Cliff smiled lazily. "Covered in hippie face?"

"Jesus Christ," Rick creaked, going pale. "Is that what that was?"

"That is indeed what that was."

"Jesus _fuckin'_ Christ."

"And on the mantle."

"Goddammit, yeah, that was hard to miss."

"Coffee table..."

"Fuckin' hell, Cliff!"

"Oh, and your _ Tanner_ poster!" Cliff chuckled and tucked an arm behind his head. "That one I _am_ a little sorry about," he said, and absolutely failed to sound like he meant it. "Always thought you looked like a badass in that one, if I do say so myself."

Rick made a queasy kind of noise—though he did look a little bit flattered—and hurriedly dug a cigarette out of his pocket. After a moment, he remembered to offer one to Cliff, who took it with an appreciative nod.

"I always figured they'd, you know, clean up after a thing like that," said Rick through a lungful of smoke. "Not just, just, leave blood and guts all over the goddamn place and hand me a number to call that I can't fuckin' call because there's still hippie mashed into all the buttons of my fuckin' telephone." His hand shook a little as he gesticulated with his cigarette. "Isn't that evidence?"

"Evidence of what?" Cliff tried not to laugh out loud at the naive question, and mostly managed.

"I don't know, evidence! It just seems like it oughta be _ somethin'_, that's all," Rick muttered, the toe of his Italian leather boot digging awkwardly at the tile floor. "I haven't even looked at the pool."

The phrase _ out of your depth_ came to mind.

Cliff struck a match and lit his cigarette.

"Sounds like you picked a hell of a time to fire your handyman."

(Officially, Cliff had never been Rick's handyman. On paper, he was—just like he'd always been—Rick Dalton's stunt double. The way Cliff saw it, his job consisted of three parts:

**one** was to do pretty much whatever chore Rick came up with to justify keeping him around;

**two** was to keep Rick from drinking too much and blowing his brains out when a role went to somebody else;

and **three** was to play more or less dumb about parts one and two.

Every once in a while somebody else would pay him to get set on fire or hit by a car, but these days those gigs came fewer and further between.)

"Yeah, look," said Rick, fidgeting with obvious guilt. "Uh, about that. Speakin' of, and all. I know the timing's no good, and I know it's gonna be a full-on pain in the ass to get it fixed up the way it was before, but I…" He took a pull of his cigarette to steel himself. "I'm keeping the house. I've decided. Officially."

"Really." Cliff's eyebrows wandered up his forehead. "What changed?"

"What the hell do you think?" Rick, caught up in a sudden flash flood of feeling, brought his clenched fist to his mouth and shook his head. "Maybe... maybe you don't really know what you got 'til you're drunk off your ass at midnight trying to protect it from a bunch of goddamn _ motherfuckin'_ hippies."

Cliff nodded in some kind of understanding. "That is what they say."

"So," said Rick, finally making his way to the point, "I, uh. I'm gonna need someone to come pick all those itty-bitty pieces of skull out of my fireplace."

"And I suppose that someone would be me."

"Fuck you," Rick finally joked, "you're the one who put 'em there."

"You're welcome," said Cliff with a satisfied grin.

"Oh, and my _ fuckin' phone_." Rick shook his head and took another drag and leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair. Seemed he was wound even tighter than usual. Fair enough, Cliff supposed, all things considered. "Look. I'm bein' a horse's ass and we both know it. Why don't you let me break you out of here and you can come stay at my place? There won't be no housework. I'll go easy on you, I swear. Scout's honor."

Rick was a good guy. Sometimes Rick had too many goddamn feelings to remember that other people had them too, but mostly, Rick was an uncommonly good guy. And Rick had this way of looking at him like he'd hung the moon, and had never once felt sorry for him as far as Cliff could remember, so he figured what Rick was feeling was guilt over Cliff getting stabbed in his house on the very last night of his job.

Which, hey, could've happened to anyone.

"Aw, c'mon, you don't want that."

"No, I do, I mean it," said Rick, and he looked like he really did. "At least come stay 'til you can get around by yourself."

"What, and sleep on your couch?"

Rick made an unhappy noise. "Francesca went and got herself a hotel."

Huh.

"What," Cliff repeated, in the very same sardonic tone, "and sleep with you?"

Rick looked desperate enough that Cliff figured maybe he'd got it wrong. Maybe Rick needed him around, and guilt had nothing to do with it.

"You and Brandy can take the bed."

"Aww," said Cliff. "And here I was about to call dibs on little spoon."

* * *

What it came down to was a lot of stoned convalescing by the pool while Rick experienced the dizzying highs and lows of his famous new friends and an expensive Italian divorce.

(The meter had been running on that marriage since before they'd bought the plane tickets, but Cliff hadn't wanted to be the one to point that out to either of them. Just didn't seem polite, in his position. But then he'd gone and got himself let go, so what the hell did he know about anything?)

(The pool had been fine, though, after a thorough drain.)

For a minute, the press had remembered his name: Cliff Booth, former stuntman, wife-killer! Did he _ really_ do all that in self-defense? It had pissed Rick off, which Cliff thought was a fucked-up kind of sweet, though he knew part of it was plain old frustration that his dredged-up old murder case had eclipsed Rick's own turn on the flamethrower. And then it was over, and their part in the drama was nothing more than a bizarre coincidental footnote.

They settled on shifts on the couch, though the painkillers made it easy enough for Cliff to nap wherever the hell he pleased. For some reason—maybe because dogs are sensitive, who knows—Brandy slept with Rick either way.

And of course Brandy was a hit with the neighbors, and the neighbors' dog, too. If Rick hadn't already had a foot in the door from his golden years on _ Bounty Law_, she would've done the trick. You show up at a pool party with four legs and a wagging tail and they'll let you get away with murder. Or at least demolishing more than your fair share of the appetizers.

"You better thank her in your Oscar speech," Cliff told him one night when she was sprawled across both their laps on the couch. Rick couldn't hold a glass and a cigarette _ and_ pet the dog, so for the moment he was still fairly sober. "When you're up on that stage, tell 'em how you owe it all to that time Bob Fosse dropped a hotdog off the porch."

"I've got auditions," Rick said, shaking his head like that could hide his grin. Cliff always got a kick out of how easy it was to stroke Rick's ego. "Not parts, not yet."

"And how many times do I have to remind you?" Cliff clapped him on the shoulder. "You're Rick fucking Dalton."

* * *

* * *

Cliff had only worked in Hollywood for a couple years, but he'd figured one thing out: believing any one of these big-name TV stars wanted to be your buddy was about as dumb as thinking that stripper was actually into you. Sure, it might be fun to pretend, and sure, the two of you probably _ could_ have some real good times together. But it was a business relationship, and charisma was part of the business.

He'd always been good at seeing through bullshit, even if he sometimes went along with it anyway just to see where the bullshit might lead.

It paid to remember where you stood with people, that was all.

Cliff had never planned to be an actor. To be fair, he'd never really planned to be anything. After he'd promised the cops that he'd get the hell out of Galveston for good, he'd lucked into a series of vaguely legitimate odd jobs which eventually landed him a gig as a mechanic at the Paramount Ranch Racetrack.

It turned out he could drive a stock car as well as he could fix one. And he was easy on the eyes, which didn't hurt no matter where he was. So when the next stunt driver died (stunt drivers had a tendency to die back in those days) Cliff was offered the chance to take his place in a picture called _ The Devil's Hairpin_.

That was how Cliff learned that there was plenty of work in this town for a good-looking guy who was willing to get knocked around for money. _ Dragstrip Riot_ was his second picture, and the stunt coordinator there was eager to find him work in television. Can you ride a motorcycle, he asked? Why yes he could. How about horses? Those boys up at the movie ranch never run out of work, y'know, that's where they filmed _ The Lone Ranger_.

Well, Cliff had never ridden a horse, but he'd always gotten along just fine with animals, who never expected anything from him other than exactly what he was. A few weeks and twelve stitches later, he could rope and ride and get shot out of a saddle on film.

He had a steady stream of obscure jobs over the next couple years. In one, Cliff would be dying on horseback in the background of a gunfight, and in the next he was drag racing in an anti-marijuana teensploitation flick. He did a few episodes of Western television shows like _ Frontier Justice_ and _ Texas John Slaughter_. It wasn't much, but then, Cliff never went after anything prestigious. He was having fun, and he wasn't in prison.

He'd started to make a little cash. Not much for this town, but more than Cliff had ever seen in his life. And with the money came a certain kind of popularity. Obviously Cliff had never had any trouble getting laid, but now they didn't look at him like he was a risky choice for a one-night stand. Now his scars were interesting. So when he'd get asked out by some pretty young thing, he'd say sure, and he'd have a pretty good time, because he'd always had a good time no matter where he was.

* * *

If there's a record somewhere, Cliff would like it to reflect that it happened more or less like this, and also, Your Honor, they were both completely fucking hammered.

"You're not married, are you?"

"Nope."

"You wanna be?"

He thought about it. He'd never tried it before.

"All right," said Cliff, "why the hell not?"

It didn't take.

A boat rental ended up being cheaper than a divorce.

And if it wasn't for the fallout from that, he probably wouldn't have ended up meeting Rick in the first place.

* * *

"You want a job this week?"

"Now how'd you know I'm out of work, Harry?"

"Booth, let me ask you something. What fuckin' town do you think you're in? You think people don't know you've got one foot on a blacklist and the other on a banana peel? It's my job to know shit like that. That's what I get paid for, knowing shit like that. And the word is, you're a liability."

"Harold. Please. I'm blushing."

"You're a shady son of a bitch is what you are. But _ Bounty Law_'s down another stuntman, and they need a guy out there this fuckin' morning. No one else I've called'll take the job. You are, my friend, quite literally it."

"So what's wrong with this one?"

"The hell do you mean what's wrong with it? You don't get to ask that question. Maybe it's cursed. The whole damn production was built over an Indian burial ground. So what. What do you care? Do you want the job or not?"

* * *

"Oh hell no. What are _ you_ doing on my set, you creepy fuck?"

"Good to see you again, Randy."

Randy was the stunt gaffer that season of _Bounty Law_. Cliff liked Randy, but the feeling had never been less mutual than it was right now. Seemed their shared contact at NBC hadn't mentioned him by name. Which was probably for the best.

"Don't tell me you're the guy."

"I'm the guy." Cliff spread his hands and smiled.

Randy looked like he was considering up and quitting his job right then and there. Cliff was just the last of many headaches.

"Y'know, if this show deserved any better, I'd send you packing. But since this is a sinking ship, and you've got a fuckin' _ history_ with those, I guess I'll give your lousy ass a shot."

A better man would've broken Randy's jaw.

Cliff cracked his chewing gum.

"Well, I sure do appreciate that, Randy."

"Frankly," said Randy, in a voice that was heavy with pissed-off resignation, "the two of you deserve each other."

* * *

It was high noon, and production had ground to a halt. Cliff was meandering toward wardrobe in the heat of the sun when he overheard the reason.

"Oh, I know what this is, motherfucker! This is a _ goddamn mutiny_!"

Cliff knew that voice from TV.

A small crowd had gathered around the shouting match, and Cliff shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled closer. In the center of the street, arguing with an exasperated man with a clipboard, was Jake Cahill, guns decidedly un-blazing. He was clearly losing whatever the argument was about, and he had the look of a cornered animal in his eyes. One that knew it was beat but would bite you before it went down.

"Th-this, this is sabotage is what this is! Now I stayed up half the goddamned night learnin' these lines you shit out for me yesterday—they're not even that good, by the way, you know they're not that good?"

Huh, thought Cliff. He didn't have a stutter on TV. And he'd never seen Jake Cahill this pissed off.

"I spent the whole goddamn night tryin' to make these halfassed words of yours stick in my brain even though they don't sound like nothin' anybody's ever said, and—and—and now you tell me now we don't get to film the fuckin' scene today because you couldn't find one sonofabitch willing to fall off a horse? Not one solitary guy! Fuck!"

"The last guy quit, Dalton! There are no more guys! We'll be lucky to make it to the end of the season if you keep this up!"

Jake—

—no, Rick, that was his name, Rick Dalton is Jake Cahill on _Bounty Law_, Thursday Nights at 8:30 on NBC—

Rick spun around, arms flung wide as he addressed the crowd. Some extras shrank back, but most of the crew seemed used to whatever this was. "Bunch of goddamn amateurs! All right, motherfuckers, I'll do it myself! I'll break my fuckin' leg right now, I don't care, watch me!"

He pointed wildly at the disinterested camera crew. The key grip flipped through _ Life_ without glancing up.

"Well?" Rick shouted. "What are you fuckin' standing around for? Roll the cameras, motherfuckers! Where's my fuckin' horse, where's Buttercup?"

Cliff took a step forward and raised his hand in a lazy wave. "I'm not Buttercup unless you buy me dinner first, but maybe I can be of some assistance?"

Rick squinted at him. In real life, his eyes were very blue, even under the brim of his cowboy hat.

"Who the hell're you?"

"Hi there," said Cliff. "I'm your stunt double."

* * *

Anyway, Cliff couldn't remember a time when he wasn't in love with Rick, so he figured that was probably how it happened.

* * *

* * *

"Hey, Cliff, we're out of orange juice again."

"Screwdriver time, huh? I'll pick some up next time I'm at the store."

"Thanks, buddy. Oh, uh, and Cliff?"

"Yeah, partner?"

"Get that jar of teeth the fuck off my dresser."

"I'm redecorating."

* * *

September rolled around, and Cliff swapped out his crutch for a limp. And there was an unspoken _ thing_going on, which was that he wasn't doing anything and Rick wasn't paying him for it.

Well, all right, that wasn't entirely true.

He'd started driving again when he realized nerve spasms were a hell of a lot less painful than Los Angeles taxi drivers.

He'd taken over cooking when the divorce dipped into the restaurant budget. Sure, "cooking" meant mostly putting a vegetable somewhere in the approximate vicinity of something that came from a box, but it was a damn sight better than Rick's idea of a meal, which was typically half a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of whiskey, and stress. For the first time in probably years, the crisper drawer was used for its intended purpose.

Plus he'd talked Rick out of four or five different Polanski-related anxiety spirals. "What the hell am I thinking," Rick would panic when the threat of meeting the man himself became too real, "why the hell would a guy that famous wanna talk to a washed-up TV cowboy has-been?" Cliff would lounge on the couch and let him get it out of his system, patiently poking holes in Rick's hyperbole until he ran out of steam. (Repeat weekly.)

_ And_ he'd picked every last one of the teeth out of the fireplace.

(He'd wanted to keep at least one to remember them by.)

But no matter how useful Rick had made himself, at some point ignoring the clock on this thing would run out.

* * *

Then again, Rick was a gold medal record holder in the thing-ignoring Olympics.

## ( Nine Years Ago )

"I mean, everyone's thought about it, right, it's not—I'm not tryin' to—it's just—" Rick had stammered in that puppydog-earnest and pointlessly apologetic way of his, like he'd managed to slightly inconvenience Cliff into the matching cowboy costume sex. "Fuckin', n-narcissism, right?"

_ Sure_, was the equivalent sound Cliff made around his dick.

* * *

Just stuff like that.

Rick didn't like his illusions shattered, mostly. He had a lot of illusions, and more than a few of them pertained specifically to Cliff. He'd always thought so highly of him for whatever goddamn reason that he'd never once stopped to consider Cliff's lack of career prospects outside of Rick's immediate orbit. just like he'd never considered asking where Cliff learned to drive like he was trying to outrun the state troopers, or what actually happened that day on the boat.

He'd been Rick's stunt double since the day he became Rick's stunt double, and for nine years Rick had stubbornly refused to let reality intrude upon the unassailable sanctity of that professional working relationship, no matter who got fucked when and in which trailer.

So Rick was a good guy, but Rick wore horse blinders to get through life.

Maybe that was the only way a pretty, high-strung kid like that could make it all the way to Hollywood.

And Cliff had never been one to rock the boat, so he'd let it go on like that, more or less completely uncommented on, for a long, long time. Long enough that he'd gotten exceptionally skilled at exactly one specialized job, which was being whatever the hell he was to Rick. He hadn't prepared to do anything else after that.

Maybe that had been his own blind spot, if he had one: he'd never thought it would ever actually end.

* * *

"Stanley. Mother. Fuckin'. Kubrick."

Rick, sprawled in his armchair, gestured to the television, where Walter Cronkite was going on about the Apollo 11 program.

"What about him," asked Cliff with mild amusement. He was preoccupied with opening several cans of SpaghettiOs and dog chow and didn't have it in him to follow that particular train of thought.

"You know there's people who think he did the moon landing tape? Directed it, did all the, y'know, the special effects, everything."

"Are you bullshitting me?"

"I'm dead serious!"

"Stanley Kubrick." Cliff leaned one-armed against the counter, stirring the pot on the stove with a wooden spoon. "What, like with NASA and the feds?"

Rick took a drink and nodded. "Conspiracy theory goes, anyway. _ 2001_was a coverup. Or a, a whatchacallit, a practice run, maybe, for the real fake moon mission."

"What, and no one ever let it slip? Nobody on set ever said a single word about it? Not even catering?"

"Well," Rick shrugged, putting his feet on the coffee table, "NASA's probably got their own catering, don't you figure? Secret agent catering?"

"Yeah, sure, and you think a guy like Kubrick's gonna put up with the NASA cafeteria? No way, man. guy made _ Spartacus._He's big time, he's not putting up with some CIA shrimp cocktail. Can you picture him eating freeze dried astronaut potato salad?" Cliff licked the spoon. "Nah, there's always catering. And people always talk."

* * *

It occurred to Cliff that maybe that had been the reason neither one of them had said anything about their strange arrangement for the last nine years. People talking.

But more likely that was an excuse, because they sure as hell weren't the only two guys in Hollywood who were whatever they were. And maybe Rick was secretly terrified of not being loved by every single person in the world, but Cliff didn't care what anybody thought and never had.

* * *

Well, all right, he cared what Rick thought.

But other than that, Cliff didn't give a damn.

* * *

## ( Eight Years Ago )

"Can't you see I'm fuckin' preoccupied here?" Rick snapped. "Do you wanna be asked who you are every time you step outside _ your_ door? Can't I get a goddamn drink in peace?"

The pretty blonde who'd been flirting unsuccessfully with him at the bar pouted. "Jesus, Cahill, you're no fun."

"You think I'm not goddamn aware of that?"

Cliff, who'd been keeping a watchful eye on the situation, leaned over and set a hand on his shoulder. _ Easy there_, it said. _ No need to make a scene_. He smiled at the girl, giving her a charming little wave that he hoped would either send her on her way or distract her for a minute.

She chose the latter. Sliding off her bar stool and making her way around a relieved-looking Rick—who buried himself in his scotch again—she took a seat at Cliff's side. He turned to her, propping his chin in his hand.

"And who are you supposed to be?"

Cliff bit the cherry off his swizzle stick. "Who, me?" He grinned. "I'm his deputy."

"Wait a minute," she said, leaning closer and peering into his face with the studied concentration of a drunk trying to recall something she'd seen once on TV. "Hey, I know you! You're that guy!"

"I have been known by that alias," Cliff agreed.

"No, I mean you're _ that_ guy, his, his, his—"

"Stunt double?"

"Stunt double," she exclaimed. Her eyes went wide, and she looked at him like she'd just thought of something brilliant. "So what about you, cowboy? _ You_ wanna show me how Jake Cahill kisses?"

Rick's sudden coughing fit stole all of Cliff's attention.

* * *

Cliff did know a thing or two about that, but he figured that was just between them.

* * *

"Whoa, hey, who's this suave motherfucker?"

What Cliff meant by that was that Rick had ditched the weird sideburns and aging Paul McCartney vibe, and it was actually working.

"You like it?" Rick ran a hand through his hair, a little shorter than it was, feathered or something like that. He looked like he thought he liked it, but he wouldn't be able to make up his mind until someone else said something nice about it first. Knowing Rick, he'd need a fresh compliment every few hours for the next week or so to keep his spirits up about the change.

"Hell yeah I like it." Cliff flipped his comic book shut and slid his sunglasses up his forehead. "It's got—shit, what's that word hair and makeup's always going on about? _ Volume_!" He snapped his fingers and pointed at Rick. "It's got volume."

"Jay wouldn't quit hassling me 'til I let him cut it." Rick glanced at his reflection in the sliding glass door, caught between sheepishness and showing off. "You really like it? I swear, I feel half-dressed without pomade."

"Nah, it looks great. Looks soft."

Rick looked like a leading man when he smiled. "Yeah, but like… like badass-soft, right? A rugged kinda soft?"

* * *

* * *

He kept the limp, and that was a glowing neon sign if there ever was one. His career in Hollywood, as much as he'd ever had one, was probably over. And he realized he didn't mind. What he did mind was the way Rick kept talking about his leg in terms of _ when_ instead of _ if_, especially since that _ if_ was becoming a _ never_.

Cliff had never really given a damn about being useful until he'd met Rick. He'd never had big dreams—or any dreams, really—but he didn't like this recurring _ They Shoot Horses, Don't They?_ thought, the idea that he might end up like that dipshit Chester on _ Gunsmoke_ with his limp and his stupid redneck accent. And man, even Chester got to be a sidekick. What the hell did that make him?

He would've rather lost the fucking leg than lost Rick. But that wasn't the kind of thing a guy just up and said.

* * *

"I got a part," Rick said, dropping next to Cliff on the couch. He sounded dazed, like he couldn't quite believe it. "I got a _ fuckin'_ part."

"You sly dog," said Cliff, sitting up straight. "You didn't tell me you had another audition. You've been holding out on me!" He smacked his shoulder.

Rick shook his head. "That's the thing, I didn't audition. I-I got an offer, no questions asked. Guy came to _ me_, Cliff."

It didn't seem as shocking to Cliff as it did to Rick, but things like this hardly ever did. "So what's the part? Gimme all the details, tell me everything. Who's your second-biggest fan?"

That got a bashful little laugh out of Rick. "You, uh, you ever heard of this producer Lee Donowitz?"

"Don't think so."

"Yeah, me neither," said Rick, lighting a cigarette he knew wouldn't calm him. Eventually he'd go to pour a drink that would. "Well, anyway, apparently he's a big war movie buff, and he's doing some—some kinda World War Two picture, I guess."

"Mm," nodded Cliff. "Another one of those 'let's go kill Hitler' movies?"

"Something like that," Rick agreed, though he didn't sound sure. "He said he saw _McCluskey_ a dozen fuckin' times, can you believe it? Said he knew he had to have me. Swear to God, he actually said no one else could play this part like Rick Dalton."

"No fuckin' doubt." Cliff slung his arm over the back of the couch. "So what's wrong, what's the matter?"

Rick shrugged, like he wanted to say it was nothing, but knew he wasn't a good enough actor to pull that one off.

"You really think people wanna watch shit like that?"

Cliff raised his eyebrows. "Like _ McCluskey_? The film that just got you a part _ McCluskey_?"

Rick looked embarrassed, and didn't say one way or the other.

"You know you're fucking good at what you do," said Cliff.

"I'm really not," said Rick, rubbing at his eyes for no reason Cliff could understand. His shoulders slumped. Jesus, leave it to Rick to have a breakdown over _ getting_ a part. "You've been here longer than anyone, you fuckin' know damn well I'm not."

"C'mon." Cliff put his arm around Rick's shoulders. "This time I'll even help you learn your lines."

* * *

Cliff never did tell Rick about the day when Jay took him out to race cars. Racing here mostly meant fucking around with his buddy Paul Newman, but racing was what they called it, so racing it was.

There was plenty of room in this business for a talented stunt coordinator, they told him. They could put him in touch with just about anyone. But Cliff shrugged the idea off. "Maybe one day," he said, when what he really meant was that this whole goddamn town could get fucked if he wasn't with Rick.

Later that night, as Jay idled his Cobra in their mutual stretch of driveway, Cliff turned to him and asked something he'd been wondering for a while. "Seriously, man. Don't you ever get sick of just waiting around?"

Jay looked at him like they both knew something really fucking stupid. "Don't you?"

Cliff tipped his head back and laughed.

"Fair enough."

* * *

* * *

Cliff had been woken up with a tongue in his mouth plenty of times before, only this time it didn't belong to his dog.

It wasn't exactly surprising that it was Rick, but it _ was_ goddamn exasperating. It had been way too long since he'd gotten laid, that was true, but there was no amount of hard up that could make this clumsy drunk attempt at kissing any good. Too much tongue, too much booze, and Rick was inches from crushing his fucked-up hip. Cliff took hold of Rick's shoulders and put a few inches between them.

"Howdy, partner," said Cliff in a patient voice that really meant _ I'd appreciate it if you'd explain just what the fuck that was about._"Jack Daniels put you up to this?"

Rick fidgeted like he couldn't decide whether to shake his head yes or no. "I told myself, I, I, I said, just go do it, Rick, just…" His eyes were very blue, and he was very drunk. The left side of his open collar stuck out at an angle. His awkward hopeful look seemed about ten years too young for his face.

Cliff sighed and rubbed Rick's shoulder. "C'mon, buddy, you know the policy on whiskey dick."

And then Rick got that miserable crumpled-up wet-eyed look like he might start sniffling, and Cliff couldn't stand that at all, so he pulled him down again and let Rick hide his embarrassment in his shoulder before it exploded out of him.

He ruffled Rick's hair.

"It _ is_ pretty soft," Cliff said gently.

Rick made a pitiful little half-sob half-laugh sound that Cliff pretended not to notice. "It's so fuckin' soft," he mumbled.

"Seriously. Fuck Michael Douglas."

"Fuck him," Rick agreed.

Cliff heard the click click click of dog nails on the floor, and a minute later, Brandy joined them on the bed, stretching out on Cliff's other side with her huge head resting on his thigh. The window was open. Outside he could hear traffic, and distantly, the baby crying next door.

"I've said it before," said Cliff after a while, "but this is the best job I've ever had."

Rick lifted his head. "I haven't paid you in two fuckin' months."

"I know what I said."

Rick squinted at him, failing to put two and two together. Which was fine with Cliff, mostly.

Mostly.

"I'd go with you to Missouri," said Cliff, which really meant a lot of other things.

For whatever it was worth, Rick looked like he understood at least a few of them. "The hell would you do in Missouri," he muttered, almost sheepish, and shook his head.

"I don't know, what does anyone do in Missouri?" Cliff shrugged, and tucked an arm behind his head. When Brandy grumbled, missing her ear scratches, Rick reached across Cliff to do the honors. "We could buy a farm. Take over the old family moonshine business. Get into bootlegging. Die young and pretty on the run from the police."

"Sounds nice," said Rick.

"Yeah," said Cliff, "I always thought it did."

* * *

As usual, Rick woke up with a hangover.

Cliff, as usual, made him eggs and toast.

* * *

On no particular afternoon, they sat out by the pool.

"You know what's funny?" said Cliff. "I kinda always thought we'd ride off into the sunset together."

Rick shook his head. The ice clinked in his glass. "This is Hollywood, Cliff. There ain't that many miles of sunset left out there for us."

"Huh," said Cliff. "I guess I never thought about it like that."

The two of them looked out over the city, over mansions and palm trees and a thousand blue pools just like theirs that glittered in the California sun. The weather was beautiful, because they were in Hollywood, and the weather was always beautiful here.

Eventually, Rick finished his drink.

"Well, ol' partner," said Rick, looking at Cliff with those big wide blue movie star eyes. "What say the two of us take a drive out to Malibu?"

"All right," Cliff laughed, "close enough."

**Author's Note:**

> ROLL CREDITS. 
> 
> [slaps roof of fanfic] this baby can fit so many half-baked Tarantino fan theories in it 
> 
> The following facts are canon for the purposes of this fic: one, this is the same Lee Donowitz from _True Romance_, director of the second-greatest Vietnam war movie of all time, _Coming Home in a Body Bag_, who is YES related to Donny "the Bear Jew" Donowitz from _Inglourious Basterds_; two, Cliff spun off of some branch of the same family of Smoky Mountain Tennesee bootleggers that spawned our good friend Aldo Raine; and three, these two facts are completely fucking irrelevant both to this story and to one another. 
> 
> "Itty bitty pieces of skull" is a _Pulp Fiction_ reference. We have fun here. 
> 
> An endless thank you to my pal and confidante Ry, who read this fic in incoherent chunks over Discord, and who gave me the really good line about boat rentals being cheaper than divorce; you can be my wingman anytime.
> 
> If you liked this fic, I'd appreciate a comment, because I'm secretly Rick Dalton levels of thirsty for validation and desperately need to talk about this film. For more gay nonsense, hit me up [on Tumblr](https://emileesaurus.tumblr.com/).


End file.
